Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/87

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

longed to have the fruits of the day's work; with their wages they could celebrate with glad, care-free hearts. But Jimmy was of a Gaelic cunning. He would not jeopardize the victory at that stage by any indiscretion. He saw at a glance the mood the gang was in. He smiled, as he always smiled—and any one, to see his smile, must have loved him—but he shook his head.

"The drink's in you, boys," he said, "and you can't trust your tongues. You'll have to wait. Monday night you'll be over. Then we'll talk business."

Subconsciously, they still were sober; in a strange dual mentality they saw the safety there was in his decision; and, in the paralysis of will his magnetism worked in them, they loved him the more for it. They remembered that it was just what Malachi would have done. And so, noisy and excited as they were, they applauded his sagacity. Then they gave themselves over unreservedly to their appetites. It was a famous night in the annals of the gang. Jimmy himself joined in the revelry. And in the calm, silent Sunday morning, with the new sunlight of spring glaring in his swollen, aching eyes,